


The Adventure of the Anaesthetist's Arrest

by cinnamon_lyons



Series: Dark Days: Holmes and Moriarty [5]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: 1880s, M/M, Sadistic Moriarty, Unethical Experimentation, Victorian Attitudes, Victorian Sherlock Holmes, Voyeurism, chloroform myths, history of medicine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-12
Updated: 2014-10-12
Packaged: 2018-02-20 21:10:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2443271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinnamon_lyons/pseuds/cinnamon_lyons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Holmes and Moriarty start becoming a little more political, and help an anaesthetist accused of mis-using chloroform along the way. In between, they dabble in a little callous experimentation on others. As this is narrated by Moriarty, there is little or no moralising: violence/rape/torture are pretty much normal to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Adventure of the Anaesthetist's Arrest

By the autumn of 1884, Holmes had quite a business going, with often as many as 3 clients a week banging on our door to demand the solution to problems of varying intricacy. His success was no doubt aided by the fact that we had moved to the no more salubrious, but infinitely better located, surrounds of London Bridge – this latter following a rather unfortunate incident with our former landlady who, not having learnt from Holmes’ repeated requests to advertise her presence adequately, had burst into our rooms to discover the pair of us in semi-naked embrace.

Having enlisted the help of a local bobby to throw us rather unceremoniously into the street, it was not until Holmes had begged in a most unseemly and out of character manner (although I was unsure whether it was his case notes or his cocaine about which he was most upset) that Mrs Seaton allowed us to collect our belongings, all the while following us around suspiciously, as if positive that we’d start tearing each other’s clothes off again the minute her back was turned. Although perhaps she was right to be wary, since Holmes was so cheerful after having been reunited with his possessions and transporting them to our new rooms (“One step closer to Baker Street, James!”) that we ended up carrying on from where we had been so rudely interrupted in our new bedroom. 

“Doesn’t it anger you?” I asked Holmes as we lay, naked and sweat-sparkled in each others arms.

“What?” He asked, eyebrows rising slightly in his thin face.

I frowned.

"What do you think? That we have no rights whatsoever!” I proclaimed melodramatically. Holmes nodded with exaggerated understanding.

“Ah, I see! Mrs Seaton’s little outburst has upset you.” He said calmly, his manner rather annoying me.

“It didn’t upset _you_?” I persisted, “Surely what we get up to under our own roof should be our own business!” Holmes laid a calming hand on my shoulder.

“James, darling, you realise that if one of us were a woman she would never have let the rooms to us in the first place?” He pointed out. I frowned darkly, annoyed at the fact that he was right.

“If one of us were a woman we could get _married_!” I snapped. Holmes smirked.

“You want to marry me, Moriarty?” He sneered mockingly.

“Yes- no!” I said, flustered. “Do you have to twist everything I say?” Holmes’s smile softened slightly.

“I’m sorry, James.” He apologised, most unusually. “I do know what you mean. But, the way things are going, losing a home could end up the least of our worries.” I chewed my lip, subdued slightly by his words. “Think about it,” Holmes went on. “Three Contagious Diseases Acts, the popular press spreading all kinds of scandals, the social purity movement... It’s all becoming an ever-increasing campaign against the dangers of male lust.”1 He grinned slightly at the phrase, but his tone remained serious. “Aren’t we the very epitome of that? We threaten everything they stand for! How long before the law agrees to lock us up?” I swallowed. Holmes was right.

“But can’t we- can’t we do something about it?” I asked, feeling nervous about my position for what was possibly the first time in my life. Holmes half smiled.

“I don’t know, James. But perhaps we can try.”

**

Holmes’ work may seem a very slow method of undermining that hated system, but it could be an effective one all the same. He must have advertised our change of address promptly, for it was within three days (three quite glorious days, in which I for once held his full attention) that he had his first client. It was a little after teatime when our new landlady (a nosey, but cheerfully likeable woman, who was happily rather less proper than Mrs Seaton) eagerly ushered a young man into the parlour. The lad was tall, with an apologetic stoop, clean and neatly dressed, and with a fresh, well-meaning face that couldn’t make him much more than 20 years of age.

“Mr Holmes?” He said respectfully, eyes twitching from one to the other of us. Holmes smiled, stepping forward with hand outstretched for the boy to take it in his limp and nervous grip. 

“I’m happy to make your acquaintance, Mr-?”

“Baker.” The lad said, “Thomas Baker.” Holmes smiled again, which didn’t seem to put the young fellow much more at ease, seating himself on the couch, hands placed on his bony kneecaps.

“Well, Mr Baker, why don’t you sit down and tell me how I can help you?” He said. “You have come direct from Bart’s, have you not?” The lad looked rather perplexed.

“Yes, I- but how did you know?”

Holmes laughed. “You have not entirely washed the evidence of the dissecting room from your hands, Mr Baker, suggesting your hasty journey from one of London’s hospitals to my abode.” He said, obviously unable to pass up the opportunity to show off. “Moreover, the fresh straw stuck to your boots suggests a stroll through Smithfield Market – which is opposite St Bartholomew’s Hospital, of course.” He smiled again. “But since you are clearly in such a hurry, you had better be seated and tell us your problem.”

Thomas Baker did as he was bade, his young, healthy – and not entirely unattractive – face creasing in a frown as he began his story.

“I came to London several years ago, to begin my medical studies under apprenticeship to a family friend, Mr Hampton Cooper – a distant relative of the great Sir Astley himself!”2 The lad began proudly. “Unlike his late namesake, however, Mr Cooper has come to specialise in anaesthesia rather than surgery itself, and is at the forefront of efforts to promote anaesthesia to a recognised profession - rather than leaving it in the hands of unqualified general practitioners and surgeons - in order to increase safety in the application of chloroform.”

“I rather thought chloroform was out of fashion.” Holmes commented dryly. The boy smiled.

“Then you have obviously not had a tooth pulled recently, Mr Holmes.” He said. “It is true that ether has made something of a comeback in surgery, but in childbirth and dentistry chloroform is still generally preferred. And it is chloroform that has led to my employer’s arrest.” Holmes cocked his head.

“The death of a patient?” He enquired. The boy shook his head.

“No.” He said, “Although he has abandoned surgery to some extent, Mr Cooper is often called on in his private practice to perform minor dental and operative procedures requiring an anaesthetic. And now he has been accused – not just once, but twice – of…” The lad blushed, “Of behaving in an inappropriate manner with young men under the influence of the drug.”

Holmes raised an eyebrow, but said nothing for a long moment, thoughtfully lighting his pipe.

“Mr Baker?” He said at last, “I think I should like to speak with your employer.”

**

Hampton Cooper was obviously a prosperous man, for his house was large and well-appointed with servants, one of whom admitted us into his employer’s presence later that very same evening. The pressures of the accusations made against him, however, clearly weighed heavily on the poor anaesthetist, who appeared thin and bowed. Yet his manner was courteously professional and, having greeted us, he smiled sadly.

“I suppose young Baker has informed you of my predicament.” He said. “The lad means well, but I am afraid that your intervention is of no use.”

“Why do you say that, Mr Cooper?” Holmes asked, for the man’s pessimism was such that it may even have seemed an admission of guilt. Cooper frowned.

“In the eyes of the law my case appears closed. The evidence against me – circumstantial though it may be – is sure to be judged as proof.” 

“I am afraid you will have to furnish us with some details, Mr Cooper.” Holmes said. “You apprentice’s account was sketchy, as was to be expected, and only with full knowledge of this supposed evidence against you can I judge the chance of our proving these accusations to be falsehoods. I assume,” He added, fixing Cooper with a direct and unabashed stare, “That they are indeed untrue?” Cooper did not appear to object to Holmes’ bluntness.

“Indeed they are.” he assured us, “But they are perhaps not entirely unexpected. There are plenty of witnesses the prosecution could procure to testify to my past – and, I might add, entirely chloroform-free – indiscretions. I am a confirmed bachelor, Mr Holmes.” He finished, and the directness of his manner could leave no doubt as to Mr Cooper’s meaning. Holmes raised an eyebrow. 

“That is hardly illegal, even in the current climate.” He said. Cooper nodded.

“True. But when a man is capable of certain unnatural acts – legal or otherwise – it appears to be the general consensus that he is capable of any number of others.”

I mused on our recent eviction, and it seemed as if Holmes was having similar thoughts, for he went on, in polite, firm tones that suggested he thought rather well of this unassuming – and strangely un-self-pitying – surgeon-anaesthetist.

“If you will permit me to take it on, Mr Cooper, I should very much like to investigate your case.” He said. “I have something of a personal interest in the matter.” Cooper nodded.

“Very well, Mr Holmes. I imagine that was why my boy went to you in the first place.” He paused, glancing from one to the other of us. “But might I advise you both that a little future discretion might be in order. Or you may find yourselves in a similar predicament to mine.”

Holmes raised an eyebrow slightly, but said nothing in reply. Instead, business-like as ever, he got down to the details of the case.

“So, Mr Cooper, you have been accused by – two? – young men…?” He asked. Cooper nodded.

"Two patients who visited in the same week, in fact. One was clearly a gentleman – a lad named Nicholas Gibson-“

“Does the name mean anything to you, Mr Cooper?” Holmes interrupted. Cooper shook his head sadly.

“No – I’ve puzzled over any possible connection… but I’m damned if I can even think of any enemies I might have!” He said, and it was clear that he had thought long and hard over all this. “The other boy was rather different – let me just say I was surprised that he had the money to come to me to have his tooth pulled. Nathaniel Harris, his name was. Again, I’ve never heard of him before in my life.” He sighed, looking increasingly dismal.

**

After a few more questions, we bade farewell to Mr Cooper, both obviously deep in thought as we were shown out of his residence. 

“Have you ever taken chloroform, Moriarty?” Holmes asked at last as we climbed into a hansom cab to return to our own lodgings. I shrugged, laughing a little.

“Is there any student who _hasn’t_?” I said jocularly, “I can’t say I remember much about the experience, other than it was entirely pleasant. And that a certain amount of vomiting afterwards discouraged me from trying it for sport again.”

“Hmm.” Was all Holmes said, and then he was silent for a moment. “But I suppose here it is the effect of chloroform on another that is in question.” He said at last, turning to me with a grin spreading across his thin face. “I think perhaps a little further experimentation is in order... don’t you?”

Holmes having purchased a bottle of chloroform from a local chemist, it was left to myself to procure a subject. I did this in the form of a young Cockney with hair like dirty straw, to whom I offered the handsome reward of a shilling for his pains. A shilling which he would be unlikely to hang around to collect, it being my experience that even the most mercenary boy tended to eventually come to believe that escape with his life – and body more or less intact – was payment enough.

The boy gazed around suspiciously when the pair of us entered the house at London Bridge.

“So, you just want me takin’ some drug, right?” He said guardedly. Holmes ignored the boy, who was, of course, no more than an experimental subject to him, rolling his eyes at me instead, with a grin.

“Predictable choice, Moriarty.” He teased, knowing my fondness for fair-haired youths. I shrugged carelessly.

“Well, you know my tastes…”

“What you talkin’ about?” The boy glanced from one to the other of us, his mood somewhere been a mistrusting anger and a nervous fear. Again, Holmes didn’t answer him, taking the boy’s shoulder firmly and propelling him to the couch. He folded a handkerchief into a cone, dripping a careful amount of chloroform onto the fabric 

“Breathe steadily.” He told the boy, holding the cloth to his face. The boy did as he was told quite happily, inhaling the sweet fragrance. I watched, head tilted slightly with interest, as he began to struggle, seemingly without realising what he was doing, but after a few minutes his body went limp. Holmes removed the handkerchief from the boy’s face, turning to me.

“This is the usual amount of anaesthetic given for a dental operation, since the pain is brief. The supposed victims confirm this, since they claim to have breathed the vapour for merely two or three minutes.” Holmes reached forward, tilting the boy’s head back. The lad’s eyelids fluttered at the movement. Holmes looked pleased at this response. “As you can see, the boy is not fully unconscious – five minutes or more of inhalation would be required for this – although he is presently aware of little.” Holmes grinned suddenly, although his tone remained matter of fact as he turned to me. “However, I sincerely doubt he would remain so throughout rape, as the supposed victims have claimed. Shall we see?” 

Aware this was my cue, I grinned back at my lover, rapidly stripping off my clothes, knowing that the spectacle was for Holmes as much as myself. Stepping up to the couch I unfastened the boy’s filthy trousers, yanking them down unceremoniously around his knees and turning him roughly onto his front. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Holmes seat himself opposite, hand stroking over his groin, and I grinned again, penetrating the boy rather abruptly. The boy murmured something unintelligible, seemingly still too far under the anaesthetic to feel the pain of my somewhat brutal entry. I couldn’t help but be disappointed by this, and thrust into him savagely, this time rewarded with a squeak and the beginnings of a struggle. Gripping the boy’s upper arms I began to pound into him remorselessly and his efforts to escape, although still weak, began to grow in magnitude.

“The anaesthetic’s working off.” Holmes remarked gleefully, and I could hear the slap of his right hand against flesh that suggested he was treating the experience as a little more than work. I grunted in reply, continuing to thrust into the lad’s protesting body, although the silent connection still existed between us, as we took our pleasure separately. The boy was almost forgotten, merely a conduit for our lust, and it was Holmes I thought of as, eyes screwed shut, I ejaculated into the now fully conscious boy.

Holmes smirked at me, casually wiping his hand on a chloroform-free handkerchief as I withdrew from the boy, staggering to my feet again.

“Thank you, Moriarty. That helps my investigations somewhat.” He drawled. The boy dragged himself into a sitting position, his movements still a little drowsy.

“It’ll be another shillin’ for that.” He said, glowering darkly. Holmes laughed lightly, raising his eyebrows as I wandered over to him.

“James, darling, did you not tell the poor lad everything that was in store for him?” He admonished me jocularly. I rested my hands on the arm of the sofa, chuckling softly.

“Should I tell him now?” I asked, bending my head towards Holmes. Holmes didn’t bother to answer, his hand already pulling the back of my head towards him, kissing me hungrily as our lips met. The kiss was long and passionate, and I grinned inwardly, welcoming this shared interest in flouting convention that seemed to have given our relationship a new lease of life.

Finally Holmes drew away, lips wet as he smiled at me again.

“Well, Moriarty, diverting as this is, I really must get on with this case. I have a few people to see…” He tilted his head slightly. “Perhaps you’d like to take care of our young guest while I’m gone?”

And our smirks mirrored each other’s.

**

By the time Holmes returned I had tired of the lad, and sent his ragged body stumbling back into the street. Holmes stood in the bedroom doorway, one leg crossed smartly in front of the other, arms folded, watching silently as I stripped the bloodied sheets from the bed, still naked and spattered with blood myself. I turned and grinned at him, and he smiled indulgently.

"Enjoy yourself, darling?” He asked. I shrugged lazily.

“It’s more entertaining with you watching.” I told him. He laughed.

“Maybe next time. After all, I’m close to concluding this latest case.”

I raised my eyebrows with interest.

“Oh yes? I think we can gather that these accusations were made maliciously?”

Holmes nodded. 

“It would seem so. I did wonder if there was a possibility of these boys being mistaken – suffering erotic dreams under chloroform, for example, and imagining erroneously that they had been abused. But, given what I have discovered, this seems unlikely to be the case.” He grinned. “And anyway, the suggestion probably wouldn’t stand up in court. I think most doctors have decidedly concluded that these unfortunate dreams are something that only afflict the weaker sex.” I stepped closer to Holmes, reaching out a hand to touch his shoulder.

“So… what have you discovered?” I asked, knowing full well that he wouldn’t tell me. Holmes raised an eyebrow, stepping away from my blood-encrusted fingers.

“Perhaps if you would clean yourself up while I carry out a few remaining enquiries, we will be able to visit Mr Cooper late tomorrow morning and conclude the matter to his satisfaction.” He said, smirking slightly as his eyes travelled up and down my red-streaked body. I shrugged.

“As you wish.” I said with a nod. A few more hours without Holmes seemed nothing now that I knew that, at last, I had his full attention once more.

 **

I did not see Holmes again until after ten the following morning when, looking unnaturally well despite his lack of sleep, he returned to our rooms to collect me, before we made our way back to Mr Hampton Cooper’s residence together. We were welcomed inside by Thomas Baker, who seemed to have been looking out for us, and led into the parlour, where Mr Cooper himself greeted us.

"I hear you have some information to impart, Mr Holmes?” He said, with a little more hope than he had exhibited at our first meeting. Holmes smiled.

“Perhaps.” He said, settling himself into a chair, and glancing up at the clock. “Although instead we might wait for a visitor who should be able to explain things a little better…” Cooper frowned, but before any of us had much time to puzzle over this, a butler entered the room. 

“Lord Douglas Macfarlan.” The butler announced shortly, showing in a plump, balding middle-aged man who, from his dress and his gold watch-chain, was clearly exceedingly wealthy. Cooper’s frown deepened, as if unsure what such a man could be doing here, but Holmes approached the visitor, shaking his hand.

“Lord Macfarlan, do take a seat.” He said smoothly, as if in his own home. And, as the rather pompous-looking fellow did so, he turned to Mr Cooper.

“Mr Cooper, it seems your fame in providing chloroform anaesthetics has spread up to where the drug was born. Lord Macfarlan, in case you do not know, is the head of the JF Macfarlan chemical industry in Edinburgh.” This information did not ease Mr Cooper’s furrowed brow at all, and he glanced from Holmes to Macfarlan and back again.

“But Macfarlan predominantly manufacture ether, not chloroform!” He exclaimed in surprise. Holmes laughed.

“And there you have hit upon something that took me a little longer to unravel. The motive for Lord Macfarlan’s attempts to discredit you.”

At this, Lord Macfarlan leapt to his feet, his face colouring.

"I did not come here to listen to this nonsense!” He expostulated, in a clipped Scottish accent. Holmes merely laughed again.

“Then why _did_ you come here, Lord Macfarlan?” He asked, “The only possible reason I can suggest is that your intention, believing your clever little scheme to be entirely hidden, was to gloat.”

“You can have no possible evidence-“ Macfarlan began, but the spark of pride that flashed into the man’s eyes at the mention of his plot was obvious, and the fact that he didn’t bother to finish his sentence and sat down again rather indicated that Holmes’ reasoning, as ever, was correct.

“Glorying in his own intelligence,” Holmes went on, “Is the downfall of many a criminal, for it leads him to take risks that common sense should inform him are foolish. As I said, the motive here is obvious. Macfarlan’s enormous profits in the early part of 1847 were shortly eclipsed by the sudden popularity of chloroform as an anaesthetic, manufactured predominantly in Edinburgh by Duncan Flockhart & Co. As we all know, the esteem afforded to chloroform has since waxed and waned, and both ether and chloroform are currently used as anaesthetics throughout the country. The public, however, remain wary of chloroform, particularly since it is a faster-acting and more easily inhaled drug than ether. And that fear is something Lord Macfarlan sought to exploit. Perhaps this was merely intended to be one in a series of accusations levelled at practitioners who preferred the use of chloroform to ether. At any rate, well aware that London had always been the place most receptive to a threat to chloroform – the Scots being fiercely loyal to “their” drug – it was London where he struck first.” Holmes paused for a moment, and Macfarlan laughed sarcastically, lulled into complacence, I imagined, by Holmes’ failure to, as yet, produce any evidence to support his theories.

“A pretty little story, young man.” He said scathingly. “But where is your proof?”

“Ah,” Holmes nodded, pacing across the room in front of the assembled crowd. “Well, there was one mistake you were bound to make. One, at least, of the accusations made against Mr Cooper had to come from a gentleman in order that they might be believed. After all, nobody listens to a street boy!” I wondered if Holmes really had flashed a knowing smirk in my direction here, or if I had simply imagined it, for he went on rapidly. “And, of course, gentlemen are harder to buy. It had to be someone you could trust, someone who would, moreover, profit from your little scheme.” He paused for a moment. “You thought that by employing someone who did not share your name – your sister’s youngest son, Nicholas Gibson, to be exact – no one would make the link between him and yourself, didn’t you, Lord Macfarlan?”

Cooper jumped slightly at this revelation, but Macfarlan failed to be particularly moved.

“And where _is_ the link to me?” He sneered. Holmes laughed.

“I understand your impatience, my Lord. Strangely enough, it was not Gibson, but the other young lad involved who first attracted my attention. The boy was a common labourer – respectable enough, perhaps, but where could he have found the money to come to Mr Cooper as a private patient? No, he must have been given the money – and quite a bit afterwards, it seems, for his acquaintances all report a sudden, surprising flush of spending shortly after his visit to the police.” Holmes paused again, turning to gaze piercingly at Lord Macfarlan. “I imagine you paid the boy in cash, Macfarlan – this would be easier for both of you, and the sum of money involved was probably not large by your standards. On the same day on which Nathaniel Harris embarked on his spending spree, a cheque from yourself cleared in your nephew’s bank account. Of course, both boys knew little about the effects of chloroform – you merely knew that it was faster-acting than your own drug of choice, ether, and assumed that the amount given during a dental anaesthetic would be enough to allow an assault to take place. This is not the case. Of course, had five minutes or more been taken over chloroform induction, the boys would not have suspected anything was amiss. But both testified that they breathed the substance for approximately two minutes.”

There was silence in the room as Holmes dealt his final blow.

“And there is one more thing which links the crime to you, Lord Macfarlan. On each of the days in question, a fictitious telegram was sent to young Thomas Baker, ensuring that he would be away from his master’s side during the operation, and thus unable to provide evidence as a witness. Both of these telegrams were sent from the post office nearest to your London residence. And both by one of your very own servants.”

There was a long pause, and Holmes turned and surveyed his crowd, slightly flushed after telling his lengthy tale. Mr Cooper was the first person to be able to collect himself.

“Well, Lord Macfarlan,” He said, “After everything Mr Holmes has told us, I assume you intend to inform your young men to drop the case against me. Of course, we could take his evidence to court, but that would only entail unnecessary expense for us both, don’t you agree?”

Macfarlan glowered furiously, but there was nothing he could do but accept. Holmes gave a sly grin.

“You might also,” He added, “Want to remunerate Mr Cooper in some way for the expenses he has already suffered – the loss of business, hiring a lawyer… and, of course, engaging my own services.” 

**

“I really don’t know how you do it.” I said, with a certain amount of awe as Holmes and I made for home. Holmes grinned, taking my arm as we walked.3 

“Sometimes it’s all too easy.” He remarked. I grinned back at him.

“Careful – no gloating!” I warned him, and he laughed, brought back to earth by my comment.

“Indeed.” He agreed. “After all, Lord Macfarlan still has influence. And he’s the very type I can imagine sitting on his red-upholstered chair in the House, cheerfully voting in every bill that might end our freedom.” I sighed, sobered somewhat by this thought.

“If only there was something more we could do – helping every poor man that needs assistance is all very well, but if we could have some impact, change public opinion…”

Holmes laughed again, turning to kiss me on the cheek as we entered the privacy of our home.

“My dear Moriarty,” He said, “You seem to be becoming dangerously political.”

**Author's Note:**

> There were quite widely reported concerns around the use of anaesthetics in the later nineteenth century, including the fear that patients were being sexually assaulted while unconscious, a connection between anaesthesia and graphic, sexual dreams, and the threat of chloroform being used for abduction. Although the handkerchief soaked in chloroform has become a cliché of crime fiction, Holmes is in fact correct about the length of time it takes to render someone insensible with chloroform (or ether). While much of the discussion about anaesthesia is true, and JF Macfarlan was a real company, this particular episode is entirely invented.
> 
> 1 The Contagious Diseases Acts were originally passed in 1864, with two sets of amendments later in the decade. They were intended to enforce medical inspection on women suspected of being prostitutes, to prevent the spread of venereal disease. Campaigners against the Acts complained that they stigmatised women as the carriers of disease while ignoring the real problem of ‘male lust’. Male lust increasingly became a topic of concern and debate in the following decades. The Acts were finally repealed in 1886 (two years after this story is set).  
> 2 Sir Astley Cooper (1768 – 1841) was a famous surgeon and anatomist. Well-known even outside the medical realm (on occasion due to concerns around bodysnatching), his funeral was attended by huge crowds.  
> 3 I’m assuming that Holmes and Moriarty walking arm in arm would not provoke attention, given that Paget drew Holmes and Watson similarly in ‘The Resident Patient’.


End file.
